


day fifteen. 7:09 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. onwards.

by 2ndtolastrow



Series: Congratulations, it’s an old man! [5]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Redemption, flashpoint!thomas vs canon returns!, just yet - Freeform, please note when this takes place in the chronology of this au, sometimes you just have to write a dumb old man who’s not quite able to figure out the concept of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:01:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26521846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2ndtolastrow/pseuds/2ndtolastrow
Summary: Tim reaches out. Thomas thinks in circles.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Thomas Wayne
Series: Congratulations, it’s an old man! [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1448731
Comments: 6
Kudos: 56





	day fifteen. 7:09 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. onwards.

**Author's Note:**

> So it’s been a literal year since i’ve updated this series but, uh, hi? 
> 
> I would also like to once again remind y’all to check where this falls in the chronology of the series, and warn new readers that this isn’t a standalone! Please go read the others, I promise this will make at least a bit more sense.

“Hey,” Tim says, sliding into the seat across from Thomas. The front of his hair has escaped his bun, and he pushes it out of his eyes half-heartedly, not bothering to give a second try when it falls right back into place.

“Hello,” Thomas replies, folding his paper and setting it on the low table between them, attempting to stifle the urge to say something about Tim getting a haircut. He might be an old man, but —

“I’m going to Maria’s today, wanna come?” Tim has a smile that says ‘confidence’ on his face, but it only takes a moment of silence from Thomas before he breaks the facade. “I mean, Alfred said he’d take care of it, but I figured you might want to get out of the house, and, well…”

He shrugs, a half-smile pulling at his mouth. “Maria is the best.”

“Sorry,” Thomas says, “but who’s Maria?”

“Oh!” Tim has an expressive face, much like Dick, and his eyebrows fly up as he understands the reason behind Thomas’s hesitation. “She runs a restaurant. It’s kind of a family favorite. Sorry, my brain just didn’t—“

Thomas waves him off lightly, ignoring the click of his wrist tilting. “I’d love to, if she’d have me.”

He doesn’t say, _I haven’t been to a restaurant except for by necessity, not recently._ He doesn’t say, _she was probably still the best at what she did._ He doesn’t say, _I’m starting to realize Thomas Wayne wasn’t really living, until very recently._

Tim smirks. “It’s really not a _reservation_ kind of place.”

“I’m still not ‘alive,’ just yet,” Thomas warns. Things have been… _busy…_ lately, and they haven’t quite gotten around to explaining him. Not that the tabloids don’t have their theories, of course.

“I have a way around that,” he replies, smirk widening.

Tim goes from ‘hipster college student’ to ‘Tim Drake-Wayne’ the moment he enters the hole-in-the-wall he’d dragged Thomas too. 

His hands come out of the pockets of his thin, turquoise hoodie, his headphones come down around his neck, his shoulders go back, and his back gets straight. (He isn’t entirely certain what flavor of not-straight his grandson is, but his lips twitch at the thought, because Tim hasn’t missed a single opportunity to crack that joke in the past two weeks.) 

There’s a certain shift in his expression, too. The carefully casual ‘see-if-I-care’ face is gone, replaced by fairly real neutrality. It’s faint, but distinct.

Thomas pulls his hat from his head and rolls his shoulders back, listening to them click and pop. Nothing more than the ordinary.

The old baseball cap is for the Gotham Knights, the logo faded and the cloth worn a bit shapeless, and he wonders who it is it belongs to. His Bruce had never liked baseball. (The brown leather jacket he’s wearing had come out of a secondhand shop, as Tim had informed him when handing it over. But the ball cap had been pulled out of the hall closet, so it couldn’t have been from the same source. He’s missed—) 

(But none of it was supposed to be his, was it?)

Tim leads him to a booth near the back without pause, settling onto the cracked blue vinyl easily. Thomas sits across from him, setting the baseball cap down on the table. 

He finds his eyes flicking around the diner without thinking, analyzing the blind spots, the escape routes, the— _Oh,_ he thinks. _That’s why this booth._

There’s an old, slightly scratched security mirror — the kind Thomas will always associate with the corners of hospitals — hanging in plain view, and it means that the old real blind spot in the place from right here is the kitchen. He’s in a defensible corner, but he could also easily make his exit through the window if needs be. 

Tim had given him the best seat in the house, and his heart warms at the thought.

“You know,” Tim says, eyes flicking pointedly down at his hat, “I gave you that thing for a reason.”

Thomas shrugs. His right shoulder clicks as he does — not a sound, but the feeling of bone pressing against bone. The usual. He smiles his best smile. “Don’t want to be seen with me, kiddo?”

(He’s a dead _hero,_ here. Not an old man with a head of gray hair and a face that had been smashed into one too many times and too much blood on his hands and —)

(He’s used to being the kind of person that would be true about.)

Tim laughs. “Your funeral, old man.”

The server brings them waters and barely-sticky menus. Thomas thinks of a place he used to go to with Martha, kind of like this. They’d had stickier menus.

 _And lower prices,_ he thinks wryly, glancing over the menu. Not out of any kind of cheapskated-ness, but just because the inflation makes him feel old.

“I like the sweet potato fries,” Tim tells him. He hasn’t bothered picking the thing up. “Cass insists the cheesy ones are better, and Steph is firmly in the waffle camp.”

“Huh,” Thomas says, reading over the lunch options, even though it’s a bit late. They’d done it to miss the rush. “How’s the grilled cheese?”

“Good.” He folds his hands. “Burgers are better. Avoid the chicken though.”

Thomas nods, and sets the menu down. 

“I’m supposed to be at work,” Tim says.

“You’re still working?” Thomas replies, surprised. He’d thought Bruce had convinced Tim back into college following — following his resurrection.

“Yeah.” He smiles. Genuine, fearful, a sliver of a thing. “Neon Knights. It’s kind of a city cleanup thing, focused on teens. I’m doing it from here today.”

Close to his heart, Thomas realizes. He’s offering—

He tilts his head. “How?” 

“What did you see, today?” Tim asks. “When we were walking?”

“Gotham,” Thomas replies. “Clean. Less signs. Less kids, too.”

He’s still getting used to this, to the fact that this Gotham isn’t quite his Gotham, is both more and less like the place he remembers growing up in. It clearly wasn’t what Tim was looking for, from the way he winces, but their server is back before he can speak.

After she’s gone, with a promise that she’ll be, “right back with those drinks,” he picks up a sugar packet, twisting it so much Thomas thinks it might tear.

He says, finally, “Usually the people who say that are from Hub City, or something. I wasn’t really expecting to get talked up.”

Thomas nods, folds his hands in front of him on the table, close enough that Tim could set his down right on top of them. He waits.

“But, like, _less_ kids out during the school day. _Less_ graffiti. _Less_ litter and pollution and fear and _whatever_ else.” He does tear the sugar packet then, barely catching the spill with his free hand.

He looks back up, makes piercing eye contact. “Not none.”

And Thomas—

He gets it, the hand Tim is offering. 

(There’s a lot of blood, and didn’t he take the Hippocratic Oath once?)

He can’t—

He’s isn’t—

(Thomas wants—)

He shakes his head, smiles gently. “Better than in my day, kiddo.”

**Author's Note:**

> jason bought bruce the hat. (comments/kudos, as always, very welcome)


End file.
